Prominent Ghanaian legal scholar and accounting professor, Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has issued a passionate appeal for the immediate repeal or total overhaul of Sections 207 and 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
According to the United States-based Ghanaian academic, although criminal libel and sedition laws were abolished in 2001, state authorities are increasingly deploying Sections 207 and 208 as alternative tools to detain, arrest, and prosecute citizens for freely expressing their views.
Analysing Section 207—which penalises the use of “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” that may cause a breach of the peace—Prof. Azar acknowledged the state’s obligation to prevent violence, but warned that criminalising “abusive” or “insulting” language creates a dangerous precedent.
“These are elastic and inherently subjective terms,” he argued, warning that determining criminality based on how listeners might react effectively hands a “heckler’s veto” to aggressive individuals.
“React violently enough, and the law may punish the person whose words provoked you,” he cautioned, adding that genuine threats and incitement to violence ought to be addressed through clear, narrowly drafted laws rather than vague prohibitions against offending others.
Turning his attention to Section 208, which criminalises publishing false reports likely to cause “fear and alarm to the public”, Prof. Azar voiced deep reservations regarding its provisions and burden of proof.
He noted that broad standards such as “fear and alarm” can trap virtually any controversial public discussion concerning corruption, the economy, or security. Furthermore, he criticised subsection (2), which requires accused individuals to prove they took reasonable measures to verify information before publication, describing it as an infringement on the constitutional presumption of innocence.
“Section 208 invites the police to become the immediate arbiters of truth,” he stated, stressing that determining truth requires careful judicial process rather than swift police arrest.
While condemning the visible decline of civility and the proliferation of deliberate provocations in national politics, the legal expert maintained that police intervention is not the appropriate remedy for bad public behaviour.
“We cannot change our public culture while rewarding the very conduct we condemn. We must distinguish between conduct that deserves condemnation and speech that deserves criminal punishment,” he stressed.
Prof. Azar urged civil society, activists, and citizens across all political divides—whether NPP, NDC, journalists, or ordinary members of the public—to consistently resist these legal provisions to safeguard constitutional freedoms.
“Different labels; familiar result. It is time to repeal section 208 and r epeal or fundamentally rewrite section 207,” he concluded.
Read the full opinion below
The criminal libel and seditious laws were repealed in 2001. Yet sections 207 and 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) have increasingly become alternative routes to substantially the same destination: arrest, detention and prosecution for speech.
Section 207 provides:
“Any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.”
The State has a legitimate interest in preventing genuine threats and imminent violence. But section 207 goes much further. It criminalizes words considered “abusive” or “insulting”. These are elastic and inherently subjective terms.
More troublingly, speech may become criminal because a breach of the peace is considered “likely.” In effect, the threatened reaction of an angry listener may determine whether the speaker has committed a crime. That comes dangerously close to giving the heckler a veto: react violently enough, and the law may punish the person whose words provoked you.
Genuine threats and intentional incitement to imminent violence can and should be addressed through narrowly tailored laws. Mere offensiveness or insult should not justify arrest, detention and prosecution.
Section 208 provides:
“Any person who publishes or reproduces any statement, rumour or report which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or to disturb the public peace, knowing or having reason to believe that the statement, rumour or report is false, is guilty of a misdemeanour.”
Section 208 further provides that it is no defence for an accused person to say that they did not know or had no reason to believe that the publication was false unless they prove that, before publication, they took reasonable measures to verify its accuracy.
This provision is objectionable on several grounds.
First, “fear and alarm” and “disturb the public peace” are broad and uncertain standards. Almost any controversial allegation about crime, corruption, security, health or the economy could cause public anxiety.
Second, “having reason to believe” risks criminalizing error, inadequate verification and disputed accounts, not merely deliberate falsehoods intended to cause harm.
Third, subsection (2) places a troubling burden on the accused to prove that reasonable verification measures were taken. That sits uneasily with the constitutional presumption of innocence and the State’s obligation to prove every element of a criminal offence.
Finally, section 208 invites the police to become the immediate arbiters of truth. Yet the truth or falsity of a contested publication may require documents, witnesses, expert evidence and careful judicial determination. Arrest should not be the State’s first response to a disputed claim.
None of this is to deny the alarming decline of civility in our public discourse. The insults, deliberate provocations and reckless accusations are deeply concerning and must be condemned.
Those who manufacture such messages, and those who knowingly amplify and distribute them, should face social and political consequences. They should be rejected, not rewarded; ostracized, not celebrated.
Unfortunately, “nonsense” sells. The more insulting, outrageous and inflammatory the speaker, the larger the audience often becomes.
We complain about the deterioration of public discourse, yet adore its worst offenders, promote them, give them platforms and appoint them to leadership positions.
We cannot change our public culture while rewarding the very conduct we condemn.
The power to reverse this decline ultimately belongs to us. We can refuse to listen, share, applaud, promote or vote for those who traffic in insults and outrage.
But that is the work of citizens and civil society, not an invitation to deploy the coercive power of the criminal law.
We must distinguish between conduct that deserves condemnation and speech that deserves criminal punishment. Incivility must be resisted without turning the police into referees of public discourse.
The recent applications of these provisions are too numerous to specify. Suffice it to say that anyone genuinely interested in liberty and due process, not merely partisan advantage. must oppose their use consistently, whether the target is NPP, NDC, a journalist, an activist, ordinary citizen, or a Chelsea fan.
Falsehoods should be corrected. Defamation may attract civil remedies. Genuine threats, fraud and intentional incitement to imminent violence may be punished under clear and narrowly tailored laws.
But the criminal law should not be a general-purpose instrument for sanitizing public discourse.
Different labels; familiar result. It is time to repeal section 208 and repeal or fundamentally rewrite section 207.
PS: Yɛde post no bɛto hɔ. Yɛnyɛ comprehension consultants.
Da Yie!
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
